There were many factors along the way, of course: Roger
Williams, Anne Hutchinson, John Clarke, and a hundred others who founded the
colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation as a secular democracy; and
those who governed the infant colony at their own expense while the
Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies tried again and again to annex the
Rhode Islanders and bring them back under the theocratic fist.

Mary Dyer was a co-founder of both Portsmouth
and Newport in
1638 and 1639. Her husband William was the first attorney general in all of America, and New England’s
first commissioned naval commander in the Anglo-Dutch War.

William Dyer and the Rhode
Island government created laws that supported the
separation of church and state functions. They were no atheists—they belonged
to Christian fellowships pastored by John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes, Roger
Williams, and others—but they’d felt the iron grip of theocracy both in England
where they’d been born, and in the short time they’d lived in Massachusetts
before moving to Rhode Island. Their friends and relatives were still living
under Puritan theocratic rule in Connecticut
and MassBay. They were determined to keep religion in homes and churches, and
government by both ancient laws and consent of the governed. They created the
first democracy in America.

When England’s
new sect of Quakers sent missionaries to New England in 1656 and 1657, they
were granted refuge in Rhode Island,
but the other colonies imprisoned Quakers and Baptists, sometimes without food
and water, fire, or blankets in the severe winters of the Little Ice Age. Men
and women were stripped naked to the waist and given severe whippings, branded
with the H for heretic, had ears cut off, were choked or “bridled” with foreign
objects forced into their mouths, were heavily fined, and had their lands, crops,
and farm animals seized by greedy magistrates and ministers. When the teenage
children of Quakers couldn’t pay fines on their elderly parents’ account, they
were put on the slave block to be sold in the South, where the girl surely
would have died a sex slave. (When slave ship owners refused to buy the boy and
girl, they were released because Governor John Endecott was shamed before his
own incensed hometown.)

News services, if they mention the June 1 anniversary of
Mary Dyer’s execution at all, tend to repeat the old hash of Wikipedia. Several
of those "facts" were reported (biased to fit their agenda) by
Quakers of the time, or by a Victorian descendant of the Dyers who fantasized a
royal genealogy for Mary Dyer. The text on Boston’s
Mary Dyer statue did not come from her last letters, but was composed by a
Quaker in London.
The tale about Mary Dyer being hanged on an elm on the Boston Common was
disproved decades ago. She did not die “because she was a Quaker,” as many
websites repeat.

Mary Dyer deliberately broke the law (violated her
banishment) on a particular date (election day and court hearing) to
bring the largest audience and most attention for her protest, knowing that she
would be executed—and hoping that her death as a high-status woman would be
notorious enough to stop the religious executions and torture perpetrated by
the religious and political government coalition. Outrage was so great that a
100-member militia of pikemen and musketeers was ordered to accompany her to
the gallows—to protect the government from the crowds. Dyer went willingly,
intending to die.

And when she did, the news went back to England, where her “last words” letter to the Boston authorities was
rewritten by a Quaker minister, in a pamphlet submitted to King Charles II. The
king wrote back to Boston and ordered the
cessation of capital punishment, saying to send death-penalty cases back to England for
trial. John Clarke, the Rhode Island
doctor and minister, with strong input from Roger Williams and William Dyer,
wrote the 1663 charter of liberties (constitution) that became a model for the
United States Constitution 130 years later. The charter granted “liberty of
conscience” to worship—or not—according to each person’s conscience, so long as
it didn’t interfere with other laws.

So even if you don’t believe in a higher power, you owe that
religious freedom and separation of powers to Mary Dyer’s death, and the
brilliance of the leaders of Rhode
Island. June 1, 1660 is a day to celebrate her
sacrifice and our blood-bought rights.

_______________

What else happened on June 1 during the Dyers' and Hutchinsons' lifetimes?

Christy K Robinson is author of four books, including
‘Mary Dyer Illuminated’ and ‘Mary Dyer For Such a Time as This;’ and
the nonfiction ‘The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport.’ All three of the Dyer books tell the story of theocratic oppression, and the birth of
democracy and religious liberty in colonial America.

Cynthia, thanks for commenting. In order to find out the "other" big event, click that highlighted text, "It was BIG," and you'll be taken to another link in this blog, about the greatest earthquake in New England history, and its connection to Pentecost, the Hutchinsons, and the Dyers. :)

Mary Dyer's letter to Endecott

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About Me

Christy is an author and editor whose biographical novels and nonfiction book on William and Mary Dyer are published in paperback and Kindle. Her hardcover book "We Shall Be Changed" (2010 Review & Herald) is also available.